


Take a Gamble

by mistyzeo



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Non-Graphic Violence, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1202641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo/pseuds/mistyzeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It cannot be overstated: John Watson is indispensable.  Not only does he make a reliable and relatable companion on any number of my little problems and mysteries, as well as a respectful flatmate and decent biographer, but he has saved my skin more times than I can count. So it is only natural that, when Watson requires my assistance in a similar matter, I rise to the occasion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Gamble

**Author's Note:**

> For the "Come at Once" challenge, in response to the prompt _You watch my step._

It cannot be overstated: John Watson is indispensable. Not only does he make a reliable and relatable companion on any number of my little problems and mysteries, as well as a respectful flatmate and decent biographer, but he has saved my skin more times than I can count. Watson has rescued me from awkward encounters with the criminal classes just with his presence and a hand on his service revolver, but he has also actually entered a fray on my behalf, broken a man's nose for my sake, and earned himself a black eye and a split lip at my request. Not only that, but he has bandaged my person more than once, cleaning scrapes, taping fractured fingers together, or stitching up wounds. It is very useful, when one engages in regular crime-solving and comes in contact with dangerous sorts of people, to have an army doctor as a helpmate.

So it is only natural that, when Watson requires my assistance in a similar matter, I rise to the occasion.

It was the springtime of 1885. We had been sharing digs only four years, and what splendid years they were. We were young and idiotic, hot-blooded and looking for danger. He had been to war and come out the other side battered, like his dispatch box, but he had overcome his illness, his nightmares, and his intermittent tremor, and was back on his feet. I had invented a test for bloodstains, impressed him with my chosen profession, and gained regular admittance to crime scenes presided over by Scotland Yard. We were as happy as we could ever be, or so I thought.

There was the matter of my devastating sexual attraction to Watson, but nine times out of ten I was able to push that to the back of my mind, lock it away in my brain attic and focus on the work. In the tenth case, it had the power to bring me to my knees, aching for him. I had begun to notice some signs that he might return at least a portion of that attraction, but I was overly cautious in the matter: wishful thinking was not something I allowed to colour my process of observation and deduction.

That spring, I had also noticed that Watson's pocketbook was thinner than usual, and he was scraping money together each week to pay the rent. He hadn't missed a week yet, but I suspected it was a near thing. Then there was his regular disappearance every Wednesday evening, which he returned from alternately giddy or disheartened.

He was gambling again, and I didn't blame him. We'd been without a case for months, and a man needs some entertainment if he hasn't got any other occupation. Watson's health did not yet permit him to keep a medical practice, and anyway I was demanding far too much of his time for my own use.

It was going to get him into trouble, I decided, even if he continued to make the rent. I could cover for him— in all honesty, it had not been money that sent me on a search for someone to share digs with— but he would invariably insist on paying me back, and he hated to be indebted to anyone. It made him feel dependent, and he was anything but.

So I elected to follow him, the next Wednesday night. His reticence about his destination, as well as the aforementioned dearth of work, made the decision easy. I needed out of the house as much as he did, at any rate.

I ignored him all day, deliberately building up the sense of isolation. It was cruel, but I needed to be certain he would go. He fretted and paced all afternoon, peering out in dismay at the grey sky. I worked diligently at a chemical equation that did not need solving or experimentation, but looked very impressive on the surface. I was mentally cataloguing the disguises in my wardrobe, trying to decide which would get me closest to him without giving me away. What I would do then was beyond me. Perhaps I would let him win a great deal of money from me.

Perhaps that would only encourage his habit.

Losing would do the same thing.

Maybe he needed to neither win nor lose, and leave his den of temptation with exactly the same amount of money in his pocket as he entered. That would stifle the excitement, and I would get my Watson back.

At a quarter to six, Watson snapped his pocket watch shut and snatched his overcoat from the rack.

"I'm going out," he announced. "I don't suppose you'll be eating, so I'll let Mrs Hudson know."

"Fine," I said, waving him away over my shoulder. On my bed was laid out the slightly shabby suit of an unlucky university student, ready to be donned at a moment's notice. The instant the hall door closed, I leapt up from my desk and dashed into my bedroom again. I shucked my dressing gown, morning coat, and good trousers, and was pasting facial hair onto my cheeks and upper lip less than a minute later. Out again I hurried, in time to see Watson turn the corner at the end of Baker Street.

I followed him to the Underground station, onto a train and off of it again, and through several streets before he entered a positively respectable club. Damn. I wasn't going to get in with my disguise. I needed to _disguise_ the disguise, and so I walked up to the door and let myself be stopped by the porter.

"A policeman?" he said.

"A plain-clothes man," said I. "I have been on the trail of that fellow who just walked in here for days, and I must not lose sight of him!"

"Is he dangerous?" the porter wanted to know, glancing the direction John Watson had just gone.

"Not if he is not provoked," I said. "Do not alert him, do nothing to indicate that he is being followed. If he senses something is amiss, he may become violent. I just need to keep an eye on him. Surely you understand, my good man?"

"Give me your name and let me see your badge," the porter demanded.

"Inspector Tobias Gregson," I said, producing the matching badge. I always kept it in my pocket book, in cases of emergency.

"Very well," the porter said, and let me pass.

Watson was at a table already with a cigarette between his fingers, cards laid out in front of him, and was laughing with the other players. I got a drink and observed them from a distance. It appeared that satisfying an impulse was not the only reason Watson sought out the card game: he wanted company.

Jealousy burned hot in my chest, as did remorse. It was my fault, I reminded myself. I had pushed him away today in search of this exact result.

Once, as I watched and drank, Watson lifted his attention from the table and our eyes met across the room. I froze, certain that he would instantly identify me, but he only lifted his tumbler and gave me a little blankly friendly smile. I managed to nod, and his gaze slipped past me.

He was starting to lose his money. I could see it in the slope of his shoulders. It was time for me to step in.

As if drawn by his earlier glance, I sidled up to the table, stooping, letting my hands flutter affectedly. I intimated that I had some skill at cards— a boast that was meant to be doubted— and was invited to join the game. I was dealt a hand, and we played.

Several rounds later, it became clear that all was not as it seemed. Watson was doing well, playing smart, and not risking a great deal. Perhaps I had misjudged him. It was not that he was losing his money: his money was being taken from him. Being a great manipulator of card games, I recognised the meddling of another player. I wasn't able to rig it the way I normally could have; instead of Watson winning my guineas, it was the man on his right. He had one, possibly two other conspirators, and soon I had them picked out of the crowd as well. I began to focus my attention on them, and won a little of my money back.

It wasn't doing any good. Watson was starting to feel the effects not only of the brandy at his elbow but of the temptation of the game, and was putting more and more into the pot. I tried to take some of it, for his sake, but his frustration only fuelled his determination.

Then there came a hand in which no amount of cheating would change Watson's luck, and he scooped a great deal of money into his arms at the end of it. Our companions complained, their distress beginning to lose its good-natured edge. We'd have to get out of this soon if we wanted to escape with our purses intact. I wished I had come here as myself, so that I could warn Watson.

"Let me just get another drink," Watson said, rising from the table, "and it'll be doubles or nothing."

The card players noticed something was wrong an instant before I did, and they preceded me out the back door of the club. Watson had already taken off, risking private disgrace over public humiliation. Good man. We gave chase, and though I sprinted like the devil I couldn't get far enough ahead of the others to help Watson get away.

He heard us, though. He darted into an alleyway and turned to face me, his fists already raised. The three men behind me came clattering into the alley with us, and I hissed to Watson, "I am with you!"

There was no exchange of banter, no taunting or verbal challenge. As soon as our opponents realised I had switched sides, they were upon us, two of them lunging for Watson and one to dispatch me.

I wished I'd brought his revolver. I chided myself for wishing it. I'd expected to save him from a card game, not from physical assault.

Watson is a good fighter, quick and strong. But he was half-drunk already, and his reflexes were slowed. He took a fist full in the face before he could give one back, and then I was too occupied with my own assailant to watch. I ducked under one swinging arm and ploughed my shoulder into the man's stomach, taking his weight upon my back and flipping him over me. He crashed to the ground, but I didn't bother to check his condition before leaping upon the back of one of the others.

I hauled him off my Watson, and his elbow glanced off my ribs. An arm around the throat had him struggling to pull me off, then throwing himself backwards into the brick wall in an attempt to stun me. I held on, winded, and soon he staggered to his knees. I rifled his pockets as he went down, and found Watson's cigarette case in the left one.

The third man was locked in a tussle with Watson on the dirty ground. Watson's jacket was ripped at the shoulder, and he had blood on his face. The other fellow wasn't doing any better. When I grabbed the back of his coat, he wrenched himself from my grasp and helped up his two companions. Soundly beaten, they stumbled away, half running half falling, and vanished into the night.

Watson hauled himself to his feet, and as I turned around to congratulate him on a job well handled, he shoved me against the wall.

"Watson," I gasped, "it's me, old boy, it's Holmes."

"I knew it was you from the beginning, you ridiculous man," Watson said, jamming a knee between my thighs and spreading my legs for me. "Your disguise is mediocre at best, and that moustache doesn't suit you at all."

I sagged against him. His body was hot and hard, and mine responded eagerly. Excitement pounded in my blood. I tore the moustache off, hiding a grimace of pain, and threw it behind him.

Watson started to laugh, and the split in his lip cracked open. When I kissed him, I tasted blood. He groaned aloud and kissed me back deeply, pressing his thigh upwards against my groin.

"You," he said against my mouth, "are insane."

"And you go looking for danger," I replied, shoving my hands underneath his ruined jacket and fumbling for the tails of his shirt.

He tilted his head significantly towards the open mouth of the alley, not a dozen yards away. "Rather," he said, and kissed me again.

My cock was stiff as iron in my trousers, and Watson was sure to have noticed. Indeed, he parted my lips again with his tongue and began to rock his hips, rubbing his thigh against my length. I shuddered and moaned, clinging to him, fisting my hands in the fabric of his shirt.

"I never thought," he muttered, breaking the kiss to pant against my collarbone. "You, of all people."

"What?" I demanded. "Would fuck men? Would want you? What?"

"Would cheat so well at cards," he said, laughing again.

I shoved him away, hard.

"Holmes," he said, hurt, but I was already tearing at the buttons of his trousers. When he caught on that I wasn't angry, not in the _slightest_ , he helped me and then saw to my own.

When we pressed ourselves together again, it was skin to skin, belly to belly, prick to prick. I couldn't fully appreciate his in the dark, but it was hot in my hand, and rigid, and in a few strokes it was leaking so generously that it slid easily alongside mine. I took us both in my hand, leaning back against the wall and spreading my legs once more. I had to sink down a few inches to allow Watson's hips to align with mine, but he took it in stride very nicely, his strong fingers digging into my thighs where he held me.

He caught my mouth once more, as I began to stroke us both with one hand stretched around both our cocks. The metallic blood taste had given way to the sweeter, sharper bite of brandy. He kissed with the rhythm of his hips, pressing me hard against the bricks, fucking my hand and my mouth.

The fervour of the fight had not left me. I felt it surging in me, making me grip him harder, bite his lip, ignore my own bruises as they formed and focus on the sensation of his body. Watson pressed his forehead to mine, breathing hard, and I knew he was already nearing his crisis. I watched his face, as well as I could in the darkened alley, wishing to imprint this moment forever upon my memory. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then opened them again to look into mine, his grin crooked and almost shy, considering the situation. With the hand not occupied with stroking us both off, I cupped his cheek, and his eyelashes brushed against my thumb.

"Holmes," he warned, turning his face into my caress and pressing a kiss to the middle of my palm.

"Yes," I said.

"Don't stop."

"Never."

When he spilled, he did it with a little stifled cry that instantly triggered my own orgasm. We shuddered together, making a mess of ourselves. The kiss we shared then was sloppy, desperate, and little more than panting against one another's mouths. I wanted to kiss him forever, smear myself against him, be consumed by him.

We came to rest again, in that alley, against that wall, pressed so close even I could barely tell us apart. We separated reluctantly, wiping futilely at sticky stomachs and ruined shirts.

As we righted our clothing, Watson looked up at me and asked, "Are my pupils dilating normally?"

"I can't see," I said, a little insulted and confused by the non-sequitur. "We'll have to go out to the street." 

In the light of a street lamp, I peered into his face. "Yes, they're fine."

"Good," he said. "Perhaps I've escaped a concussion. Your knuckles are bleeding."

"You've got a nasty scrape," I replied.

"And I've been robbed," he said.

I beamed at him. "It's all right," I said, "I got your cigarette case."

Watson's grin was like the rising sun. "Did you indeed?"

"By force," I said proudly. "You'd have done the same for me."

"So I would," Watson said, squeezing my arm. "Bloody hell. Shall we go home?"

"Let's get a cab."

"No cab will take us at this hour, looking like this."

He was right. We had to walk to the Underground and ride it back to Baker Street, fielding anxious glances and downright hostile stares from the other passengers. The blood was beginning to dry on Watson's temple. He looked an absolute fright. Besides the torn sleeve, his trouser knees were ripped and his hat was crushed. There was a bruise forming on his cheekbone; I thanked God it hadn't been shattered altogether.

Mrs Hudson was not pleased to see us. She boiled water for us and left us a stack of old, clean towels, but as soon as she'd done that she was gone with a huff of disapproval. I locked the door behind her.

"Your jacket is ruined," I said to Watson.

He was already taking it off. He dropped his trousers as well, and then sat down on the settee in his vest and drawers. He took the steaming towel from me, and I wet another as I sat down beside him.

We treated one another's wounds, hissing and wincing and giggling. The water turned pink, but the cuts had stopped bleeding and the bruises would heal. Watson's cheek was especially tender. I needed my knuckles wrapped, as they had been wrapped before and would need to be wrapped again. 

And when we began to shiver, the heat in our blood fading as we cleaned one another up, we went to my bed, which was just big enough for the both of us.


End file.
